The strategy choice cascade: where to play, how to win, and what would have to be true

Who should use it, and when not to

Use it when a team needs its strategy on one page, when leaders are choosing between two or three strategic options and keep talking past each other, or when the current strategy is a vision statement plus a list of initiatives. It works at any level: a company, a business unit, a brand, or a function. A unit's cascade sits inside the company's.

It assumes you know the problem you are solving. If the team can't agree on what the core challenge is, write a strategy kernel first. If the open question is how durable the advantage would be, pair the cascade with a durable advantage check.

The five choices

The choices run from abstract at the top to concrete at the bottom, and Martin describes the work as iterative rather than a waterfall: you move down, find that a capability can't be built, and go back up to rethink the pair.

Why where to play and how to win come as a pair

Martin calls these two the heart of strategy, and he argues they can't be chosen one after the other. A where to play has no value without a how to win that fits it. His example is Four Seasons: choosing to manage luxury hotels, rather than own or develop them, is what made its distinctive service model possible, and a broader choice of where to play would have weakened it.

How to win also has to be a real theory of advantage. "Improve innovation" and "go digital" are sensible aims, but they describe getting better, not beating anyone. A how to win says why a chosen customer gets more value from you, or why you can serve them at lower cost, than from the rivals they could pick instead.

What would have to be true

Martin calls this the most valuable question in strategy, and it changes the conversation. Asking "is this option right?" makes people defend positions. Asking "what would have to be true for this to be a great choice?" lets the team agree on the logic first and argue about data later. He groups the conditions into four areas: the industry, customers, the company's relative position, and competitors. Then the team picks the conditions it doubts most and agrees in advance on what evidence would settle them.

A worked example

An illustration with a made-up company. A Kyoto maker of handmade kitchen knives has 22 staff and three master smiths. About 70% of sales come through department stores, which have declined for three years; the rest come from its own web shop. Two options: (A) sell direct to professional chefs in Japan, with sharpening and repair included, or (B) sell to home cooks in the US and Europe through the web shop, where a Tokyo rival already sells on Amazon.

• Aspiration: be the maker that people who cook with its knives every day would choose again, without depending on department stores.
• Pair A: chefs in Japan, won by a knife kept at its best for years by the people who made it. Doubted most: will chefs pay for a service plan, and can three smiths sharpen without cutting output?
• Pair B: home cooks abroad, won by the maker's story and handmade quality. Doubted most: will buyers find and trust a small web shop, and can it stand apart from the rival already selling there?
• Tests: offer the plan to restaurants the company knows; time a month of sharpening work; pull its foreign web-order history.
• If A wins: the must-have capability is sharpening by the makers, which store-based rivals can't offer; the systems are fixed sharpening slots in the workshop schedule and a chef account list.

How to build a strategy choice cascade

1. Set the scope and write the aspiration in one or two sentences, as a direction; don't overinvest in it up front.
2. Write two to four where-to-play and how-to-win pairs. Reject any where to play without a how to win.
3. List what would have to be true for each pair, by industry, customers, your relative position, and competitors, without arguing yet whether each is true.
4. Mark the conditions you doubt most and agree in advance what test or data would settle each one.
5. Choose the pair, or schedule the tests and a date to decide.
6. Name the must-have capabilities and say why rivals can't or won't match each one.
7. Name the management systems that build and sustain each capability, and read the cascade up and down for fit.

The strategy choice cascade skill walks through these steps with your facts and marks what still needs checking.

Common mistakes

• A one-box strategy. An aspiration or purpose statement alone is not a strategy.
• Stopping at how to win. Without capabilities and systems, failure gets blamed on execution later.
• Choosing where to play first. A long list of markets, one picked, and only then a how to win.
• Polishing the aspiration for weeks. The pair matters more.
• Capabilities everyone has. They keep you in the game; they don't win it.

Where it comes from

A. G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, and Roger L. Martin, his long-time strategy adviser and then dean of the Rotman School of Management, set out the five choices in Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Martin has developed the ideas since in his own writing, including "The Big Lie of Strategic Planning" (HBR, 2014) and his essays on strategy practice. This page is an independent summary in our own words; it is not endorsed by the authors or the publisher.

Questions

What are the five choices in the strategy choice cascade?

A winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, the must-have capabilities, and the enabling management systems. Each choice should fit the ones above and below it.

Should where to play be chosen before how to win?

No. Roger Martin argues the two must be chosen together: a where to play has no merit without a how to win that fits it. Generate them as pairs.

What does 'what would have to be true' mean in strategy?

Instead of arguing whether an option is right, the team lists the conditions that would make it a great choice, agrees on that logic, and then tests the conditions it doubts most.